


Walls

by fresne



Series: Eid Mubārak [9]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 21:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11299668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: It would be wise to hide. To go deeper into her apartment.The walls might stop a bullet. She would not hear the voices from her kitchen.She'd hear the gunshot.She'd hear that.





	Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Eid.

Jihan heard the voices. Young. Angry. Harsh as a spray of bullets.

Pleading.

They pierced their way into her home even though her window was boarded up. Even though the bullet holes in her walls were patched with cloth.

She rested her head against the doorframe.

Jihan was light from hunger. All she'd had to eat for weeks was flour and boiled weeds. The wise choice would be to go deeper into her apartment. She was a woman of years. She should be wise. The walls might stop a bullet. She would not hear the voices from her kitchen.

She'd hear the gunshot.

She'd hear that.

She opened the door and peered out. Had to blink at the harsh light. Saw soldiers surrounding three young men on their knees. A lieutenant shouted, "Tell us the truth! You're terrorists. We're looking for a man with a gun."

One of the young men, more foolish or desperate than the rest, said, "I don't have a gun. I am going to work. I am an accountant. I keep books for a shop."

A private laughed, "Liar. There are no shops."

The lieutenant, he looked so young with his beard hardly grown, said, "They must be traitors. They cannot be from here."

Jihan did not think. She did not let herself. She walked forward as quickly as she could with her cane. Tears streamed down her face. She did not let herself think about tears. She said, "Please," she put her hand on the accountant's shoulder, "this is my son." She pointed to the other two men. The ones who had been silent. "Please, this is my nephew and my neighbour. They are not traitors. They are loyal. Just boys. Please, I live right there." She pointed to her home. To the open door. She did not look away from the lieutenant. "They are just hungry."

She inhaled snot and air and fear.

Jihan continued. "Lieutenant, you sound like you are from Homs. My sister lived in Homs. Near that butcher, you know, the one who would sell meat from ewes and act as if we couldn't tell they were not rams." She couldn't stop the words. They kept coming out.

The lieutenant nodded. "I know the one." He spat on the ground. He jerked his chin in the direction of her open door. "Take them inside."

She put her arm through the accountant's arm. She said, "Help your old mother. Now that you've made me run out here like this into the hot sun." They walked arm in arm.

Jihan felt the soldiers' guns at her back. She felt their eyes. She felt them even after she closed the door of her apartment.

One of the men sobbed, but was quickly hushed. "They'll hear you."

She turned away to grant them what dignity she could. "I'll make tea." She did not say that it was only dried dandelion roots. These days, they must all make do.

She put the kettle on.

The accountant followed her into the kitchen. "Thank you."

She nodded. Focusing on the movement of her hands. On pulling the tin from a shelf. On putting the roots in the pot. Pouring the tea into cups. Going back into her living room that was only a thin door and dry wall away from soldiers on a too bright street.

The accountant looked at the bullet holes over the boarded up window. He said, "I can't stay here."

She knew he did not mean this room.

Jihan wanted – did not want to go. She was too old to go anywhere.

She looked vaguely around. She pulled a plate inscribed with the Shahada from the place her husband had placed it on the wall all those years ago. The loss of it created a pale gap on the wall. "Take this. It was my husbands. I…" There had been too much loss to finish. A mountain could not fill it.

One of the other men said, "Take that and it'll mark you as a terrorist if the soldiers question you again."

Jihan's fingers trembled around the plate.

The accountant took it. "Thank you, Mother. I will take good care of it."

"Allah bless and take care of you."

"And you."

They said no more for some time. One by one, the men looked through the door and slipped away to wherever they were going.

The accountant was the last to go. He asked, "Do you have a cell phone?"

She snorted. "Does this look like a cave?"

He smiled. "No."

She gave him her number. He took it and gave her his own. With a quick squeeze of her shoulder, he was gone.

Leaving an empty place on the wall and an empty cup. She went to wash the cups. So it was that she did not hear her mobile phone trill as it received a text. She smiled when she saw it some hours later. As she wept years later when Ismail, her not-son, sent her a picture of her plate upon the wall of his new home.

**Author's Note:**

> Events in this story are drawn from events described here:  
> http://stories.unhcr.org/


End file.
